Chapter 76 - Want to Make a Bet?

Since the dawn of the Iron Age, Limon had grown used to many things. Young punks who had never held a sword boasting that they were swordsmen because they had learned a swordsmanship skill. A world built around the habit of thinking and judging everything in terms of skills.

"H-hey! I've heard enough! What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Hm? Did I say something I shouldn't have?"

"You just said we couldn't even tell shit from piss!"

Even so, at this moment, Limon could not contain his irritation.

"Well, you said a performance by someone without a music skill is nothing but noise. I figured someone without a bathroom skill must not be able to tell shit from piss, either."

He had not only turned back instead of leaving; he was hurling sarcasm at young men he had never met.

[Team Leader? What's gotten into you?]

The fact that Yu Na-gyeong was flustered enough to try to stop him from atop his head made it clear that this was unlike him. But Limon made no effort to suppress his irritation. The instant he heard them dismiss the performer's song as "noise" without a second thought, the frustration he had built up from listening to skill-driven performances lately mixed with the dark jealousy he had felt listening to that song, and it all burst out.

"I suppose food made by someone without a cooking skill is all dog food to you, too? And every student without a learning skill must be a failure."

"What kind of nonsense is that?"

Limon sneered at the indignant trio. "Why? It makes more sense than saying people shouldn't sing if they don't have a skill."

"That's different."

"How?"

"If someone can't cook or study, that's their own problem. But if they put on a terrible performance in public, they bother everyone else, don't they?"

"And why do you get to decide what's a terrible performance?"

The trio seemed to have finally grasped roughly why Limon was picking a fight with them. They sighed.

"Look, sir. We apologize for speaking a little carelessly."

"A little?"

"Maybe it isn't quite noise, but surely a performance by someone with a skill is better than one by someone without one?"

Without a music skill, a person was just an ordinary person. Compared to a player with a music skill, wouldn't an ordinary person's performance be practically noise? Limon gave a cold smile as the trio defended their position with what they saw as common sense and sound logic.

"Hey. Want to make a bet with me?"

"What kind of bet?"

"I'm going to let you hear a performance without a music skill."

The trio looked dubious at the abrupt suggestion, so Limon laid out the terms.

"If you can still say the same thing after it's over, I'll give you a proper apology for my rudeness. I'll also pay you twice what you said it cost to apply for this spot."

"And if we can't, you want us to give up the spot?"

"No. That's up to you."

"Up to us?"

"Just what I said. Apologize or don't, as you please. I'll pay you double either way."

"Then why make a bet at all?"

The trio stared at him in disbelief. Under those terms, they alone would decide who won, and they alone stood to gain. Limon, however, remained perfectly nonchalant.

"If you're scared, forget it."

"... Fine. Go ahead and do whatever you like."

In the end, the trio accepted his bet. They had nothing to lose, and it would be even better if the performer decided to leave on their own.

With that settled, Limon took his arms off their shoulders and called to the performer.

"Hey, friend."

The song had apparently just ended. The performer had stopped singing and was watching the exchange with a blank look; at the unexpected address, they tilted their head.

"What?"

"Lend me that guitar and your voice for a bit. I'll help you put on an even more fun performance."

The performer looked at him with eyes wide in surprise. Limon gave them a broad grin.

Perhaps it was his confident smile. Perhaps it was because he had taken their side. Or perhaps it simply sounded fun. After gazing at Limon for a moment, the performer smiled and nodded.

"Sure, friend."

They did more than agree. Without the slightest hesitation, they held out their guitar and made room for him. Taking the guitar, which was heavier than it looked, Limon gladly perched where the performer had been sitting. He plucked each string in turn as they talked.

DING

"What song?"

"The one you were singing just now."

"'Don't Look at Me'? I wrote that song. Can you play it?"

"I've heard it once."

"Have you?"

Most people would have dismissed the claim that he could play a song after hearing it only once as nonsense. The performer did not. They merely looked intrigued, as though eager to see how much of it Limon could play.

Yu Na-gyeong, on the other hand, was alarmed.

DING

[Team Leader, what on earth are you thinking?]

'What do you mean?'

[All of it, from start to finish. You don't usually get involved in things like this, do you?]

Yu Na-gyeong knew that, despite being called a mad dog, Limon was surprisingly respectful of social conventions and unspoken rules. She could not understand why he was going so far to help someone he had only met today. It might have been different if they knew each other.

DING

'Just call it a whim.'

[What are you, a teenage girl? Since when do you act on a whim?]

'Even I feel stifled sometimes.'

[... Fine. For the sake of argument, let's say this is a whim.]

Yu Na-gyeong nodded for the moment. She knew how dissatisfied Limon had been with the performances he had gone to hear lately. But even allowing for that, there was another reason his behavior stunned her.

[But you don't know how to play guitar! Why are you suddenly saying you're going to perform on one?]

'It's fine. I've learned how.'

[When?]

'Just now.'

[What is that supposed to...?]

DRING

Yu Na-gyeong abruptly closed her beak. Throughout their conversation, Limon's fingers had been slowly brushing the guitar strings. As they began to move faster, the faint sounds grew steadily clearer. The thin notes swelled, the slow tempo quickened, and the separate plucks began to flow together. Before she knew it, what came from Limon's guitar was no longer a series of sounds, but a distinct performance.

DING, DRING

"Huh?"

"When did he start?"

The few spectators who had been watching with interest since the trio and Limon interrupted were bewildered. They had kept their eyes on him the whole time, yet none of them had noticed when the performance began.

Naturally. It was a Sword Master's technique: a move founded on the principle of striking the instant one acts, beyond even the pinnacle of responding after an opponent moves yet striking first. An enemy would be cut down before realizing the sword had been drawn.

But in an instant, no one cared when or how he had begun.

DRING, DRING, DRIRING

'What is this performance?'

'Is this really the song we heard just now?'

Limon plucked the guitar rapidly. Though his fingers were playing the very song they had just heard, the melody slipped into their ears with a strange ease, capturing the audience's attention.

'This is...?'

Of them all, the performer was the most surprised. It was not merely that Limon's playing, while oddly awkward in places, was incomparably better than their own. As the song's composer, the performer could tell he was rearranging it on the spot.

'Is this guy out of his mind?'

It was one thing to play a song he had just heard for the first time. He was tinkering with it during a live performance. Either his confidence was through the roof or he was a little crazy. No ordinary musician would do that, especially after asking a complete stranger to lend him not just their song and guitar, but their voice as well.

That was precisely why the performer grinned. They drew a small breath and began to sing along with Limon's playing.

"Don't look at me—"

"...!"

At that moment, the trio and the rest of the audience caught their breath without realizing it. The instant the husky voice joined the clean, ringing guitar, they felt the fine hairs all over their bodies stand on end.

But that was only the beginning.

DRRRING

"Don't look at me like that—"

As though it had been waiting for the singing to begin, the guitar rang out more fiercely, like a racing car surging forward. Rather than being swallowed by the playing, the voice rode the melody and pressed in with even greater passion. Together they sent more than a shiver through the listeners; a thrilling chill ran through them, drilling something they could not name out of their hearts.

'This is...the same song as before?'

The spectators who had heard the performer before the trio arrived were stunned. The song had certainly been good when the performer had sung while playing their own guitar. But with Limon's dazzling guitar in place of the original clumsy accompaniment, the singing was on another level entirely.

'How?'

'I-is it a skill?'

'Or were they deliberately holding back before?'

They did not know that, technically unpolished though it was, the performer's singing had enough potential for Limon to compare it to Julia, the Witch of the Violin. Nor did they know there existed a monster who had copied Julia's playing after seeing it once, and whom she had acknowledged, just a few months later, had nothing more to learn from her in terms of technique. And they had no idea that this monster was now using every bit of his Sword Master's senses to focus solely on compensating for the performer's technical shortcomings.

The result was the street around them. All the passersby seemed to have vanished, replaced by an audience of more than a few dozen.

'I don't usually watch street performances.'

'If this makes me late for my appointment... Ah, shit, whatever. I'll be late and treat them to something.'

Whether they had been hurrying somewhere, had intended to watch a different performance, or had no interest in music at all, nine out of ten people who heard even a snatch of the singing hesitated, then joined the crowd.

"Don't look back—"

The cool, unwavering guitar playing turned brilliant one moment and quiet the next. Above it, the singing faltered at times and was crushed at others, yet rang out all the more ardently for it. The harmony born of those two opposing sounds pierced hearts like a blade and shook souls like a storm.

DRING, DRING, DING—

When his fingers plucked the guitar, it was not the strings that throbbed, but their hearts. When the husky voice cried out, it wrung emotion from them, not merely a song.

"Look at me and smile like that—"

At last, the song ended. Even after the melody that had left their hearts swelling and aching faded away, the hundreds in the audience could only hold their breath, as if spellbound, and linger in the afterglow of the performance.